Various diseases can be diagnosed by counting and classifying tangible components in urine. For example, it is known that fat particles, which are fat-containing constituents, appear in the urine of patients suffering from nephrotic syndrome and chronic renal failure. It is possible to identify the possibility that a patient suffers from kidney disease such as nephrotic syndrome or chronic renal failure by analyzing whether fat particles appear in the urine collected from the patient.
WIPO Patent Publication No. 01/059462 discloses a method for measuring fat particles in urine by enzymatic reaction in which fatty particles such as fat droplets, fat bodies and fat globules are uniformly eluted in a urine sample with a surfactant, and an enzyme is caused to act on the eluted fat particles.